Let's take a moment to consider the perils of cathartics. These are the bowel-blasting chemicals that might indeed loosen balky guts, but at great peril. You get hooked on them. Larger and larger doses are needed. Your guts become so slack they won't work without a kick. And you could get even sicker:

"There are many persons who are "allergic" to one or another of the drugs used in laxatives and cathartics. That means their systems are extremely sernstive to a certain drug, just as some people's systems are sensitive to strawberries. For instance, mercurial purgatives, such as calomel, may produce severe poisoning in some types of people."

Try to work "Mercurial Purgatives" into your conversation today.